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at the trial, confessed himself to have been deceived into the part he took, and is ready to bind himself to return to America if released, I have reason to believe that so soon as the state of things in Ireland becomes sufficiently settled to permit of it, the authorities will grant his discharge. A movement may be made in his behalf by some persons of influence here on what may be deemed the first favorable opportunity, with which I shall endeavor to co-operate. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

No. 1393.]

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, June 22, 1867.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith a small box containing a gold medal, which the Royal Geographical Society of this kingdom has awarded to Dr. Isaac I. Hayes, for his success in reaching the highest northerly point of discovery on the continent of North America. At the desire of the president of the society, Sir Roderick Murchison, I consented that this medal should be committed to my care in presence of the society at its anniversary meeting, a few days ago. I take pleasure in communicating to you the intelligence of this honorable testimonial to one of our fellow-citizens, and pray you to take charge of the same, in order that it may safely reach its destination. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

No. 1399.]

LEGATION OF the United STATES,
London, July 3, 1867.

SIR: In accordance with the instructions contained in your despatch No. 1998, of the 11th June, I had an interview with Lord Stanley on the subject referred to. After some conversation, in the course of which I read the substance of your communication, it was arranged between us that I should embody the remonstrance in a formal note.

I have the honor to transmit a copy of that which I have presented. You will perceive that it goes more fully into the previous history of the question at issue, so far as I find it recorded in the archives of this legation, than you have done in your despatch. But there may be still another portion of it embraced in the preliminary negotiations to the Reciprocity treaty which would throw additional light on the inducements to the settlement then made. This may be easily ascertained by reference to the papers connected with that treaty remaining unpublished in the department.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.

Mr. Adams to Lord Stanley.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES,
London, July 3, 1867.

MY LORD: It has come to the knowledge of the government which I have the honor to represent that an export duty of 20 cents per thousand feet has recently been levied in her Majesty's province of New Brunswick upon lumber which is sawed from logs grown in the territory of the State of Maine, bordering on the tributaries of the river St. John's, and floated down to the mouth of that river under the rights of free access recognized by the third article of the treaty of boundaries between Great Britain and the United States, ratified on the 22d of August, 1842. I am directed to inform your lordship that it is the opinion of my government that this action is in contravention of the provisions of the article aforementioned.

This appears not to be a new question between the two countries. I find it to have been carefully and thoroughly presented to the attention of her Majesty's government by my predecessor, Mr. Everett, on behalf of the United States, in a note dated on the 28th of June, 1844, drawn up under urgent special instructions from Washington, and addressed to the Earl of Aberdeen, then acting as her Majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs. The arrangement seems to suffer so little change in its character during the interval that without a repetition of it on my part I trust I may be permitted to refer your lordship at once to the paper containing it. for the grounds on which the remonstrance is now revived.

It is no more than proper for me to observe that this paper was responded to by Lord Aberdeen in an elaborate note, dated 9th of December, 1844, in justification of the proceeding complained of.

The question appears to have been left open as a cause of difference between the two countries until the negotiation of the treaty of the 5th of June, 1854, when under the provision of its fourth_article the right of New Brunswick to lay any such export duty was explicitly renounced.

It is inferred that the expiration of that treaty, in accordance with the fifth article, reserving a power of termination on notice of either party at the end of ten years from its date, has been regarded in New Brunswick as reviving the right to lay this duty. Hence the resuscitation of the law before complained of.

I am authorized to say that it is impossible for my government to acquiesce in the construction of the provision in the treaty of 1842, upon which this right appears to be claimed. Whilst I may be permitted to express my regret that the result of the rescision of the reciprocity treaty should be in this case the revival of differences thought at the time of its ratification to have been permanently reconciled, I cannot but infer from the general friendly disposition of the government of both countries a reciprocal disinclination to sanction by reason of it any needless reopening of ancient causes of irritation. In this view I cannot restrain the expression of my regret that her Majesty's province of New Brunswick should have been so prompt in returning to a practice which has never been regarded in the United States as otherwise than unjust to that portion of their people dependent in some degree upon a free navigation of the St. John's, and which the very fact that it has been once explicitly renounced renders it still more irritating. I do not entertain a doubt that some mode may be arrived at in this case, as it has been in the still more delicate one of the reciprocal rights of fishery involved in the expiration of the same treaty, of avoiding the difficulties that may be apprehended to grow out of it.

I pray your lordship, &c., &c., &c.,

The Right Hon. LORD STANLEY, &c., &c., &c.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

No. 1401.]

Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward.

LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES.
London, July 5, 1867.

SIR: Since the date of my despatch No. 1379, to which your No. 2005, of the 20th of June, is in answer, the case of John McCafferty, therein referred to, has somewhat changed its character. The application for a writ of error, which, according to the practice in Ireland, appears to have been addressed to the lord lieutenant, has been replied to by the under-secretary of that officer in a note, stating that, in the opinion of the attorney general, there was no ground for such a writ, hence that it has been refused.

Under these circumstances the counsel for McCafferty have decided to take the course of petition to both houses of Parliament, praying their intervention

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in his favor. I have the honor to transmit printed copies of the forms of this petition as they have been sent to me by the prisoner's counsel. I further learn that copies have been forwarded to Lord Westbury in one house, and to Sir John Coleridge in the other, with letters soliciting their aid in the presentation of them. A request has likewise been made to me that I would interfere in aid of these petitions. The only question that arises in my mind, in connection with this state of the case, is as to the extent to which a diplomatic representative may venture to proceed in attempting to influence the purely legislative proceedings of the country to which he is accredited. My general impressions, I confess, are unfavorable to setting an example of such an interference, as opening up dangers of its application to ourselves, with our peculiarly constituted forms of legislation, which might, in the progress of time, lead to serious disorders at home.

Bearing in mind, however, your instructions, I shall endeavor to make such verbal representations on the subject to Lord Stanley as may induce the government to withdraw its opposition to the movement. Should any success result from it, I shall then proceed in regard to the suit according to the directions which I have received.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C. ̧

To the lords spiritual and temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled:

The humble petition of John McCafferty, of the United States of America, now a prisoner in Mountjoy convict prison, in the city of Dublin, showeth: That your petitioner in another petition has represented to your lordships a grievance arising out of the unjust denial of the right of appeal; that he also prays your lordships to take into consideration the following circumstances connected with his conviction; that no direct evidence was offered at his trial of any act of hostility to the British government committed by your petitioner in this country, except that of one Corydon, an informer examined on his trial; that the only other evidence consisted of acts done in his own country, for which your petitioner was not accountable to British law, and of circumstances of suspicion affecting him in Ireland and England; that upon such evidence his counsel insisted at the trial that there was no proof sufficient to warrant a conviction, requiring two witnesses to high treason; that the judges who tried the case reserved such questions for the court of criminal appeal; that in such last-mentioned court ten judges out of eleven gave their opinion in favor of upholding the conviction, the remaining judge (Mr Justice O'Brien) declaring that he had no doubt whatever that the evidence was insufficient to satisfy the statute; that the judges who upheld the conviction all differed on the grounds upon which they did so ; several of them thought that there was just a scintilla of evidence to go to the jury. The Lord Chief Baron ruled distinctly that he had not a shadow of doubt in dissenting from the ground upon which the majority of the court decided, but that with great doubt and hesitation he upheld the conviction upon a point which had only been suggested by himself in his judgment; that the result of the judgment of the judges on the appeal is to establish incontestably that in the trial in the court below your petitioner had not the benefit of the statute requiring two witnesses to prove high treason; that, even if your petitioner could dispute the laws as laid down in the court of criminal appeal, your petitioner is informed that there is no means of bringing the decision of that court under the review of a superior tribunal; that your petitioner humbly submits that, having regard to the difference of opinion among the judges, the contradictory and conflicting grounds upon which they rested their decision, and especially having regard to the very strong and clear opinion of the Lord Chief Baron, the decision cannot be regarded as satisfactory; that, on the contrary, it is plain that at the trial, in point of fact, the question of your petitioner's guilt was left to the jury upon the testimony of one witness, and that he was really convicted upon the testimony of the informer Corydon alone; that his conviction was against the provisions of the statute of William the Third; that a sentence founded on such a conviction ought not to be carried out; that there is no clear or satisfactory judicial decision establishing, as to the testimony of any two witnesses, that the same was sufficient to convict your petitioner, or that he was convicted by any witnesses proving any act of treason against him independent of the evidence of the informer Corydon.

Your petitioner humbly submits that a reading of the judgments delivered in the court of criminal appeal is sufficient to establish that, in point of fact, as the case was tried, he was convicted on the evidence of Corydon alone,' against both the spirit and the letter of the

statute.

Your petitioner therefore prays that all the papers and documents connected with the hearing of your petitioner's case in the court of criminal appeal, including the printed opinions of the judges, may be laid before your lordships' house, and if it shall appear that your petitioner has been convicted upon the testimony of one witness, or that the circumstances are not such as to warrant the carrying out of the sentence, that your lordships may address the Queen to grant to your petitioner a full pardon, on the ground that the legality or propriety of his conviction does not satisfactorily appear.

And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

JOHN MCCAFFERTY.

To the right honorable and honorable the knights, burgesses, and commons in Parliament assembled:

The humble petition of John McCafferty, of the United States of America, now a prisoner in Mountjoy convict prison, showeth That your petitioner is a natural-born citizen of the United States of America, having been born in Sandusky city, Ohio; that your petitioner was found guilty of high treason at a special commission of the county of Dublin, in the month of May last, and he was thereupon sentenced to death, but that the capital sentence was commuted into the punishment of penal servitude for life; that your petitioner is now undergoing the latter punishment, and that if said punishment be carried out it will inflict upon your petitioner a doom more terrible than death; that your petitioner now humbly approaches your honorable house, because he is advised and believes that he is enduring this punishment under a sentence not warranted by the laws of England, and that he is prevented from testing the legality of that sentence by an arbitrary and unjust denial of the right of appeal; that your petitioner was committed to custody in the county of the city of Dublin on the 23d of February last, under the warrant of the lord lieutenant, issued in pursuance of the statutes 29 Vic., chap. 1, and the 29th and 30th Vic., chap. 119, continuing the said first-mentioned statute; that the said statute, 29 Vic., chap. 1, contains in its first section an express provision that no judge or justice of the peace shall bail or try any person so committed to custody, under the warrant of the lord lieutenant, without orders from her Majesty's privy council; that when your petitioner was tried your petitioner was in custody under a warrant from the lord lieutenant, and that no order was ever made by the privy council authorizing his trial; that the fact of your petitioner being so in custody, under such warrant, was plainly stated in the calendar of prisoners given to the judges at the commencement of the sittings, and that the warrant itself was produced and given in evidence at the trial, and the fact of his being in custody under it was clearly proved; that notwithstanding the said express provision of the said statute, the attorney general put your petitioner on his trial without obtaining any order from the privy council authorizing your petitioner's trial; and the judges proceeded to try your petitioner notwithstanding the notice so given to them in the calendar, and after the fact of your petitioner being in custody under said warrant had been distinctly proved before them; that after the verdict of "guilty" had been returned, and before any sentence was passed upon your petitioner, Mr. Butt, one of her Majesty's counsel in Ireland, defending your petition, called on the judges not to proceed further with the trial by giving judgment against your petitioner, as no order from the privy council authorizing the trial had been produced to them; but that the judges overruled such objection and sentenced your petitioner to death; that the judges, in overruling such objection, stated that they were bound by the terms of an order of the court or criminal appeal to pass sentence on your petitioner; that the said order was made by the said court of criminal appeal upon questions reserved for the said court, as to the sufficiency and admissibility of evidence given upon your petitioner's trial, and which in no way related to the question of jurisdiction so raised by your petitioner's counsel; that your petitioner has been advised that any order having such effect was wholly beyond the jurisdiction of the court of criminal appeal, and that any such order would be wholly illegal and of no avail, the power of such court being strictly limited to the decision of the questions reserved for them."

Your petitioner showeth that the said order was drawn up without any opportunity having been given to your petitioner's counsel of seeing or objecting to same, and your petitioner believes that said order was never intended by the judges who sat in the said court of criminal appeal, nor could it in fact, as your petitioner submits, conclude the said judges from entertaining the said objection so made by your petitioner's counsel; that Mr. Justice Fitzgerak, one of the judges at the commission, in overruling the objection so made by your petitioner's counsel, stated that he was bound by the form of the order made by the court of criminal appeal, and that if there had been a mistrial, your petitioner would have another remedy; that the commission court having held themselves bound by the form of such order, *

your petitioner has had no opportunity whatever of submitting the legality of his trial to any tribunal whatever; that your petitioner, before pleading to the indictment preferred against your petitioner, objected to plead to the said indictment upon the grounds that the provisions of the statutes of the 5th George III, chapter 21, Irish, and the 1st and 2d George IV, chapter 24, had not been complied with, and that your petitioner had not been furnished with a true copy of the whole indictment ten days before his said trial, and your petitioner tendered to the said court a plea for the purpose of raising the said objection upon the record, and praying that he might not be called upon to plead until the said statutes had been complied with, and your petitioner saith that the said judges refused to receive the said plea, contrary, as your petitioner believes, to your petitioner's strict right; that upon the record of your petitioner's conviction it is admitted that two of the grand jurors who found true bills against your petitioner were not sworn upon the Holy Evangelists, or at all previous to the finding of the said bills, and your petitioner saith that one at least of the said jurors was not a person ualified or permitted by law, in serving as a grand juror, to take an affirmation instead of an oath; that your petitioner was defended by Mr. Butt, Q. C., and Mr. Dowse, Q. C., counsel assigned by the court, and that they were aided and assisted by Mr. O'Loghlen and Mr. Molloy, and that these four gentlemen are in their respective positions among the men at the Irish bar most eminent for knowledge of the criminal law; that these four gentlemen unanimously advised the attorney acting for your petitioner that the matters hereinbefore stated, and the omission by the attorney general to obtain the order of the privy council authorizing the trial, were fatal objections, and made the trial a nullity. And your petitioner was further advised that such objections were proper subjects for a writ of error, and that on a writ of error, error in fact could be assigned, and upon a writ of error to the Queen's Bench, or at all events to the House of Lords, the judgment of the court against your petitioner would be reversed, especially as no superior court would be bound by the illegal order of the court of criminal appeal; that acting on such advice, your petitioner's attorney caused a petition to be presented to the lord lieutenant of Ireland for a writ of error; that after the lapse of some time your petitioner's attorney received a letter from the under-secretary of the lord lieutenant, stating that in the opinion of the attorney general there was no ground for the writ of error; that the petition for the writ of error was accompanied by the certificate of your petitioner's counsel that there were good grounds for such writ of error; that your petitioner submits to your honorable house that the attorney general was the prosecutor in the case, that the question was whether he had made a mistake or blunder in the conduct of the proceedings, and that it is contrary to the first principles of law and justice to permit him to be the absolute and final judge upon such a question; that your petitioner humbly submits to your honorable house that it is impossible to say that a fair question does not exist as to the legality of your petitioner's conviction; that if such fair question exist, it is the right of your petitioner to have same submitted to the proper court of appeal, and that any capricious or unjust denial of such right to a foreigner amounts to a violation of the established principles of international law; that your petitioner, an American citizen, now humbly claims his right to test the legality of his conviction by an appeal to the highest tribunals of British law, and most respectfully and most earnestly protests against the attempt to shut him out from that appeal; that your petitioner is ready to produce at the bar of your honorable house, or in any other way in which your honorable house may direct, the opinions of eminent British jurists, that the allowance of his appeal is a matter of right; that no possible inconvenience can result to the course of justice by allowing the writ of error; that your petitioner is undergoing his sentence, and must continue to undergo it, unless and until it is reversed by a superior court; that the only practical effect of the writ of error would be to test the legality of the conviction, which if legal would stand.

Under these circumstances your petitioner respectfully but most solemnly protests against the denial of his right of appeal, as a violation of the principles of justice and a breach of the principles of international law. Your petitioner is aware that your honorable house has no power judicially to interfere, but he appeals to your honorable house as her Majesty's commons not to permit this wrong to be committed in the name of the Queen.

Your petitioner, in his own name and in the name of all foreigners, protests against the rule that an Irish attorney general, in a case in which he prosecutes himself, can constitute himself the judge of the propriety of an appeal from the regularity and legality of his own proceedings; and as a citizen of the United States your petitioner humbly claims by the laws of nations the benefit of every appeal to which any citizen of this country is entitled.

Your petitioner is informed and believes that although in form the assent of the attorney general is required in this country to every writ of error in treason or felony, yet such assent is never refused when reasonable grounds are shown, and that writs of error in England are commonly issued in cases of the most heinous offenders, and upon grounds much less strong than those existing in the case of your petitioner.

Your petitioner further showeth that, in England, in order to obtain a writ of error, no petition to the executive is necessary; but that in Ireland a petition to the lord lieutenant is required.

That your petitioner's solicitor was required with the petition to the lord lieutenant to deposit, and did deposit, a sum of fifteen guineas as a fee for the opinion of the attorney

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